It seems like there’s nothing Amazon can’t do: Cloud computing services, music and video streaming, payments, credit cards, small business lending.
“They’re the everything store in the truest sense of the word,” Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights said at its Future of Fintech conference in New York this week. “Amazon is on a tear. Just the rumor of them entering your space will send your stock price down,” as evidenced by the way grocer stock prices fell following the announcement that Amazon is acquiring Whole Foods.
The idea of a “Bank of Amazon” was the first of 10 trends to watch in financial services over the next year that Sanwal delivered at the event.
One big reason: Amazon knows how to keep people happy. CB Insights data found 86 percent customer satisfaction at Amazon, compared to Citi (82 percent), Capital One (80 percent), “all banks” (80 percent), TD Bank (79 percent), and Bank of America and Chase (each 75 percent). Studies show most millennials would rather bank with the Amazons of the world, Facebook and Google included, than their existing banks.
“Their ambition is unmatched in terms of what they can do and they play the long game,” he said. According to an Amazon patent from 2004, “they’ve been thinking of financial services either how it reduces friction in their own purchasing process or how to own some more of that value chain over time.”
But even if customers begin engaging more with Amazon through financial services, it’s not clear how much of a real threat it is to legacy financial institutions. We asked attendees at Future of Fintech: Are Amazon’s moves in financial services as threatening as they sound?
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